The Better Boyfriend
by cjulina
Summary: It's Ianto's birthday and Jack's not making the grade so he finds himself a "better boyfriend". A Ianto/Tosh friendship fic.
1. Chapter 1

A/N - This is dedicated to my best friend, Ray, who inspired this story when he called me his better boyfriend.

OOO

Tosh was hunched over her computer, trying to get the latest update to the translation program working properly. For some bizarre reason, it was correctly identifying which of the hundreds of possible alien languages in the database matched the test samples but converting the results into Old English. The 0.024 seconds needed to translate from Old English into Modern English was inefficient and unacceptable.

She sighed and began studying the code, searching line by line for the mistake. Tosh had almost traced down the error when a hand landing softly on her shoulder startled her. She gave a soft yelp, looking up quickly.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you," Ianto said contritely.

She smiled and pulled off her glasses. "It's okay. I thought I was the only one here."

He turned and leaned against her desk, looking tiredly down at her. "I've been working in the archives waiting for Jack to finish up so we can go back to the flat. I'm too exhausted and too ravenous to wait on him any longer. I'll just pop into his office and let him know I'm heading home."

"Jack left over an hour ago."

"Oh." He looked and sounded slightly annoyed.

"He did say something about stopping to pick up groceries and needing to take care of some things." When he didn't respond, she said, "It's a shame he's going to be in London for your birthday. Maybe he's planning to surprise you with a home cooked dinner tonight to make up for that."

He was not at all convincing when he responded with, "Yeah, that's probably it." He straightened up and gave her a sad smile. "I'm knackered. See you tomorrow, Tosh."

"Ianto, is everything okay?"

His sad smile tightened. "Of course. Everything's perfect."

She watched as he walked with slumped shoulders through the cog wheel door. _No, everything isn't perfect. It's anything but perfect_. She looked at the time, grabbed her purse, and rushed out of the Hub without stopping to power down the computers. _I have just enough time to make it to the shops before they close. _Mentally making a long list of everything she wanted to pick up, she hoped against hope that none of it would be needed_._

The next day Tosh kept glancing at the time, chewing on her bottom lip worriedly. She'd sent Ianto a simple "Happy Birthday" text when she woke up. There had been no text or call in return, and, as the morning started shifting to afternoon, he still hadn't shown up for work. Tosh considered calling him but thought, hoped really, that he'd listened to her advice and was taking a day off. When Owen and Gwen started grumbling about being hungry, she waved them off when they invited her to join them, deciding to forego lunch in case Ianto made an appearance.

Fifteen minutes after their departure, the cog wheel began rolling open. Through the entrance stormed Ianto, fists tightly clenched, a livid flush to his face, his body language clearly displaying the message _Don't mess with me today. _He strode immediately to the kitchenette, not even bothering to acknowledge her.

Tosh set her glasses aside and quickly stood. Sounds of cabinet doors being yanked violently opened and then forcefully slammed shut issued from the kitchen, followed quickly by the metallic clang of what could only be the silver serving tray being crashed against the countertop.

"Last night didn't go well?" she asked softly as soon as she joined him.

Ianto gave a harsh snort, tightened his already fisted hands, and then bent his head down wearily. "You could say that." She waited, knowing that he didn't need to be rushed. "This thing with Jack, it's ... it's not working."

She walked over to him, gently laying a hand on his arm. "Come on, let's get out of here. We'll take a stroll and you can tell me all about it."

He nodded, slow and despondent, as if burdened with the weight of the world. Silence reigned until they were out in the bright sunshine and had wandered over to their favorite spot overlooking the marina.

"Talk to me, Ianto."

He was gazing at an outgoing fishing boat, a wistful expression painted on his face. "When Jack came back, when he asked me out on a date, I thought things would be different." His voice became forceful, certain. "And it was. Things were better. He treated me as if I mattered, as if he cared about me."

"And now?"

Ianto snorted. "Now we've gone back to how it was before. I'm just a convenience, a fun little bit on the side. Last night is a good example. I got back to the flat. Nearly falling flat on my face, I might add, because Jack had set his suitcase right in front of the door with no thought that I might trip over it. And there he was, watching telly and eating pasta. All he said was 'Oops.' Oops!," Ianto grumbled. "I went into the kitchen, which was the usual mess that follows when Jack cooks, to find that he hadn't even fixed enough for me. Then as I was looking at the disaster that was formally my kitchen, he comes in, sets his dirty plate on the counter, and tells me he's going to bed because he needed a few hours sleep before UNIT picked him up for the London conference."

"And what did you do?" she asked.

"What else could I do?" he answered with a shrug of his shoulders. "I started washing up because Jack can't make a simple pasta dish without dirtying every pot and pan in the flat. I made something to eat with the one egg and the half-off tomato left in the fridge and then cleaned up the flat. Once I finally rolled into bed, Jack woke me an hour later." Tosh would have laughed, if the conversation wasn't so serious, at Ianto's attempt at imitating Jack's American-tinged accent. "Hey, birthday boy. How about I give you a blowjob?"

"He didn't!"

Ianto looked incensed as he replied, "He certainly did. I shucked a pillow at him, called him an arsehole, and told him to get the hell out of my flat." The sadness returned. "Like I said Tosh, I don't think Jack and I are going to work out."

She tilted her head to look into his eyes. "Are you certain about this?"

He shook his head and turned to look out over the marina. "No, but I don't like how things are between us and I don't see that changing anytime soon."

Tosh tucked her arm around his, tugging him gently away from the marina. "That's fair so tell me, are you willing to keep trying to make it work?"

"I don't know, Tosh. I don't know how much more I can give."

She set the direction of their walk. "Relationships don't just happen. It takes work. It takes effort. You have to compromise and be willing to adapt. Relationships aren't about what you get out of them but what you give."

Ianto angrily barked, "That's the problem! I don't know what else I can give to make this work."

"That's exactly the problem, as I see it," she responded calmly. "Ianto you've been doing all the giving. Have you even given Jack an opportunity to do anything for you? Have you ever lingered in bed so he can fix breakfast for both of you? Have you ever asked him to fix dinner or do the washing up?"

He stopped mid-step. "He did try washing up a few times but ...," his voice trailed off quietly.

"But he didn't do it to your standards, am I right?"

He nodded sheepishly. "Yeah, I went behind him and did it properly. And he stopped offering to help out."

"So you didn't really give Jack an opportunity to do anything for you and you weren't willing to compromise your standards which made Jack feel like he'd never measure up so he quit trying."

"I ... I," He smiled down at her fondly. "When did you get so smart?"

She laughed, a bit sad and cheerless. "When you live a sad and lonely life, you do the next best thing. You watch and observe the people around you. You take note of what they're doing right and where they are going wrong with their relationship. That way, should you finally meet the right person, you're better prepared to make it work."

"It'll happen for you, Tosh," he gave her hand a tight squeeze. "There's someone out there who will recognize what a special and amazing person you are."

She shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe but today isn't about me. It's about you, birthday boy. So, we are taking the rest of the day off, going back to my flat where I have the makings for mimosas, snacks that cover the five necessary food groups for a friends day in - sweet, salty, tangy, spicy, and, most important, chocolate-y. And while we drink ourselves silly and stuff ourselves on unhealthy foods, we'll watch your favorite DVDs and laugh the night away."

Chuckling, Ianto said, "You're really amazing. You're a better boyfriend than my boyfriend is."

There was a moment of shock and then Tosh burst out laughing. "Very high praise, indeed."

"The highest, Tosh," he said sincerely. "The very highest."

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

Tosh stood on the platform, shuffling through her lists and timetables while waiting for the train. For the past two days, she'd watched Ianto vacillate between wanting to work on his relationship with Jack and considering ending it altogether. Fortunately, he was siding more often with trying to work on the relationship. She had managed to set the seeds for Ianto to mull over where he was going wrong but that was only part of the equation. The other half of the problem was now stepping off the train.

There was little doubting the exact moment when Jack spotted her there. His face shifted from a wide but strained smile to a grim line of despondency. "I guess this is my answer. Ianto's been avoiding my calls since I left and now he's sent you here to pick me up rather than do it himself. If I'd known he was ending things, I wouldn't have left the conference early."

"Is that what you want, Jack? To end things with him?"

"It's what he wants apparently," he said with a sad shrug of his shoulders.

"I didn't ask what he wants. I asked what _you_ want."

"I want Ianto to be happy," he replied quietly. "But I don't think I'm the one who can do that."

She crossed her arms and gave him a stare worthy of an annoyed schoolmarm. Her voice had a warning edge to it as she said, "Jack."

"No, Tosh. I don't want to end things with Ianto but I don't know what to do. Nothing I do seems to be right. When I try to get him to head back to the flat at the end of the day, he tells me he's in the middle of something and he'll meet me there later. Yet when I go to the flat without him, he yells at me for not waiting for him. It's become a lose, lose situation."

She nodded understandably. "Have you ever told him you'll be ready to head out in a half hour so he has time to get to a stopping point?"

Jack blinked. "No, I never thought ... you think that would work?"

"It wouldn't hurt," she said with a smile. She thrust a sheaf of papers at him and started walking to her car, not bothering to see if Jack was following. "Here, read over these."

He sprinted to catch up to her. "What's this?"

"Your plan of attack to get out of the dog house with Ianto. First, we're going shopping for birthday gifts."

"He said he didn't want anything for his birthday," he interjected.

She shook her head at the stupidity of men in general, and Jack's idiocy specifically. "You need to learn that people sometimes say the opposite of what they really mean. When Ianto said he didn't want anything for his birthday, he really meant ..."

"He wanted me to make some sort of effort," Jack completed her sentence with a grimace. "I really screwed up, didn't I?"

Tosh unlocked her car and slid into the driver's seat. She didn't reply until he had joined her. "It's nothing that can't be fixed." She maneuvered her car out of the parking lot. With a nod towards the papers Jack held in his hands, "The first five pages are some suggestions for gifts Ianto might like. You should look them over before we get to the shops."

He look down at the printouts and set them aside resolutely. "No. Thanks for going to the trouble but I'd like to try doing this on my own."

When they stepped into the store, Jack made a beeline for the men's clothing department. The men's athletic wear, specifically. He bounced around, picking up one item and then discarding it when another item caught his eye. He held up a dark blue sleeveless t-shirt, at least two sizes too small for Ianto's frame. "Ohhhh, don't you think he'd look incredible in this, Tosh? I can't wait to see him in this, not that he'll be wearing it for long."

Tosh cleared her throat. "Jack, we're supposed to be looking for something Ianto wants, not something that _you_ want for him."

He sadly put away the shirt. "You're right. He said something about needing a new briefcase. Let's go see what they've got."

Eventually Jack was in line, waiting to pay for the items he had chosen. In addition to the classic leather briefcase, a tie clip, cuff links, a fluffy dressing gown, an antique looking fountain pen, several books, a large bar of dark chocolate, and one item that Jack wouldn't let her see had been added to the pile of gifts. "You go pull the car around. I'll be right out."

Once Jack had stowed the bags into the boot, he asked, "So what next?"

"More shopping. This time for everything you need to cook a romantic dinner."

Jack straightened quickly. "No! Nonono! I will not get caught in that trap again. I'll make reservations somewhere instead."

"What trap?"

"I've tried cooking for him, Tosh. Spent hours trying to come up with dishes that he'll like. I'd go to the trouble of fixing dinner for us, he'd eat a few bites, push the plate aside and go make a sandwich. If you really want us to patch things, the last thing you'll want me to do is cook for him tonight."

Tosh thought for a moment. "Let me guess that everything you made for him was mostly vegetables."

"Well, he needs to eat more vegetables," he answered defensively.

With a nod of acknowledgment, she said, "True but Ianto can get belligerent when he feels like he's being nagged. You're always pointing out how he should improve his diet and by cooking only vegetables for him, he might feel like ..."

"Like I'm criticizing him." He nodded in understanding. "So what should I do instead, oh fount of all knowledge?," he continued with a teasing grin.

"Compromise. Fix the dishes you normally would but grill a small bit of chicken or steak on the side to go with it. I bet you'll find he eats more of what you cook and will be appreciative of your efforts."

The trip to buy groceries didn't take as long as Tosh thought it would. Jack breezed through the shop, confident with what he wanted to prepare and not needing to ask Tosh's opinion even once. So it was, they were lugging all the shopping bags into Ianto's flat in short order.

As soon as Jack stepped into the flat, he stopped, a worried look as he spied the cardboard boxes filled with his possessions scattered about the living room. "Are you sure about this, Tosh? It seems like Ianto's already made up his mind."

"I'm sure. We've been run ragged chasing Weevils while you've been in London. I think Ianto just hasn't had the energy to put away your things. How about I start putting your things back where they belong while you start on dinner?"

Jack cocked his head, thinking for a moment. "No, that should be Ianto's choice. If you don't mind, just move the boxes so they aren't in the middle of the floor. I've got to get vegetables peeled."

She did as he asked and then joined him in the kitchen. "Need some help?"

He didn't look up from thinly slicing mushrooms. "With the cooking, no, but," he glanced at the wall clock, "could you wrap the presents? I won't have time to do it before he gets here, provided he leaves work at a decent time."

"He will," she said confidently. "He's supposed to meet me here in about an hour so we can go out for dinner. I wasn't about to leave anything to chance." She sat at the table and began wrapping the gifts Jack had picked out. Silence prevailed while Tosh wrapped gifts and Jack tackled cooking until Tosh pulled from the shopping bags the one item that Jack hadn't let her see.

"Jack!" she exclaimed with a bright blush on her cheeks.

He turned to eye the satiny, red, tight-fitting, barely there, pants with a salacious grin. "He is going to look soooo good in those. I know you said to only buy things Ianto would want but he'd think something was wrong if I didn't get him at least one item that is more about what I want for him."

"I suppose you're right," she said as she wrapped the pants with the last of the wrapping paper. She tried, and failed, to not imagine what the young Welshman would look like wearing the tiny scrap of fabric. Her face grew even more crimson at that image as she gathered all the presents to place them on the coffee table in the living room. Jack joined her as she finished arranging them.

"So that's about it. Gifts wrapped, dinner is almost ready, and Ianto should be here any moment. The rest is up to you, Jack. One finally word of advice. When it comes to washing up, offer to help by drying and putting everything away. Let him do the actual washing."

He smiled gratefully at her. "That much I'd already figured out. He has meticulous standards, which I'll never meet, when it comes to cleaning but I can find ways to still help out." He hugged her tightly. "Thanks for everything. It's not that I'm not appreciative, because I am, but why did you go to so much trouble?"

"Because I don't want to be the better boyfriend," she blurted out. "I just want to be Ianto's friend, his best friend. You should be the better boyfriend." She quickly exited, leaving Jack with a puzzled expression on his face.

OOO

Three evenings later, Tosh was, once again, hunched over her computer trying to track down the error in the alien language translation program.

"Evening, Tosh. You should give some thought to heading home. It's getting late," Ianto said cheerily as he passed by her desk. She was pleased to see he was more relaxed, happier, than he had been on his birthday. She watched as he popped his head into Jack's office. She couldn't keep the contented smile from her face as Jack, with yet another box holding some of his clothes and possessions in his arms, joined him. The two men waved goodbye as they headed home. "Have a good time," they called to her in unison.

So distracted by continuing problem with the translation program, she didn't catch on to the statement until they were long gone. _What did they mean by have a good time?_ She shrugged her shoulders. _I must have misheard them._

Ten minutes later, she had the coding error corrected and with a stretch of cramped muscles decided it was time to head back to her lonely flat. She opened the desk drawer to retrieve her purse only to discover an envelope with the words "For our Better Boyfriend" written on its surface. Curiously, she pulled out a card and several sheets of paper.

In Ianto's beautiful script the card read, "We want to thank you for making each of us improved boyfriends. Without you knocking some sense into our thick skulls, we wouldn't have realized where we've been going wrong. You will ever be our Better Boyfriend, a much higher distinction than a mere best friend. And since we're still a work in progress, we may have to come to you for advice in the future."

Jack's messy scrawl appeared next. "We got you a little gift in appreciation. Do me a favor? In case any UNIT Watchers still have you under observation, try to look surprised when you run into your mother at check-in."

"And look even more surprised," Ianto's handwriting took over again, "when you find out that the two of you are assigned to connecting rooms."

She, with tears pooling in her eyes, looked at the papers that had been tucked in the envelope with the card. A plane ticket, reservation for a luxury hotel, and an itinerary for treatments in its top ranked spa.

_Ianto's right. Who would want to be a mere best friend when you can be the better boyfriend for two pretty fantastic men?_


End file.
